Apple has been killing it this year

Apple CEO Tim Cook waves as he arrives on stage to deliver his keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, United States June 8, 2015.
REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Apple has had a stellar 2015 as the company moves further and further away from the legacy of co-founder Steve Jobs and into a new era for the company, defined by current CEO Tim Cook.

Apple's revenues have soared during 2015, totalling over $232 billion (£155 billion), up from $191 billion (£128 billion) in 2014.

While not as flashy on stage as Jobs was, Cook is an effective operator who has steered the company into new areas — such as enterprise— and has updated the stable of products to include the Watch, Apple Music, and various other software products, including the News app.

Tim Cook holds an iPad Pro onstage.The Guardian
But it's the behind-the-scenes aspect that Cook has really excelled in. Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs describes Cook as an effective operator who managed to cut down Apple's supply chain issues to minimum, saving the company money and, in the process, making products that are of a higher quality than rivals.

Cook's supply chain expertise — which, more broadly, translates into an attention to detail that cuts out unnecessary steps and processes — has helped IBM, a long-time stalwart of the enterprise business, cut the amount of time it spends on technical support when compared to Windows users.

Eddy Cue, who runs Apple Music, high-fives Drake.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The launch of Apple Music, which competes with Spotify, was broadly successful and analysts see potential for the service to grow to the same size as Spotify— around 20 million paying subscribers — by the end of 2016.

iOS 9 introduced the News app, which works with partners — from The New York Times to The Guardian to Business Insider — to bring content into one place. Publishers were initially unhappy with the kind of analytics that Apple was providing, but the company has introduced an update that gives them more insight.